| Abstract [eng] |
The aim: to analyze and evaluate the long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students' physical activity. Tasks: 1. To find out the subjective health and physical activity of students before the quarantine. 2. To analyze changes in students' physical activity during the quarantine period. 3. To determine the correlations of students' physical activity indicators, subjective health assessment with changes in physical activity after the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: the instant research was conducted by conducting a remote questionnaire anonymous survey in 2024, in the months of March - May. The study was conducted at Vilnius University. Participation in the study was voluntary and open to all willing students currently enrolled at the university. Only completely filled questionnaires were analyzed, respondents participated in the study (response rate - %). Taking into account the purpose and tasks of the study, the questionnaire consisted of sociodemographic, physical activity and its changes after the Covid-19 quarantine questions. Conclusions: 1. An active lifestyle, including physical activity, was important to most students before the COVID-19 pandemic, as a statistically significant proportion of respondents rated it as important or very important in their lives. 2. During the pandemic, the amount of time spent passively increased significantly (58.4 percent of respondents spent 6 hours or more passively, while only 31.3 percent of respondents spent the same amount of time before the pandemic); there were much less of the physically active persons in their free time (who engage in physically active activities no less than 2-3 times a week) during the pandemic than before it. 3. The older the person, the less time per day he spent passively before the pandemic, during the pandemic and in the last month. 4. The more important an active lifestyle/physical activity was to the respondent before the pandemic, the more often he engaged in physical activities both before the pandemic, during the pandemic, and in the last month. 5. The evaluation of students' physical activity after the pandemic is quite controversial, as even two-thirds of the respondents spent 6 hours or more passively in the last month, but 70.9% before the pandemic, 68.8 percent of the respondents were also engaged in now engages in physical activity in his free time at least 2-3 times a week. However, the general assessment of students' current physical activity and capacity is lower (45.8%) than before the pandemic (64.6%), but higher than during the pandemic (41.7%), which allows us to conclude that although in the last month physical activity and capacity were significantly higher than during the quarantine but have not yet fully returned to the pre-pandemic level. |
